


we belong awake, swinging from the fire escape

by theragingstorm



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Batgirl and Robin - Freeform, Canon What Canon, F/F, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Growing Up, Mentor/Protégé, Parallels, Romance, Rooftop Kisses, Rooftop Races, Time Skips, but they love those kids anyway, did i mention the fluff?, exasperated mentors, they’re bats doing this kind of thing on patrol is a given, two versions of them at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: Two different looks at two different Batgirls and Robins, and two different sets of grown crimefighters, separated by the years.





	we belong awake, swinging from the fire escape

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know which verse this takes place in, I guess an amalgamation of Post-Crisis, various Batman cartoons, and Lil Gotham. All I know is that I really needed to write some fluff before I go back to writing actual serious stuff. And that I do love timeskips and parallels way too much. 
> 
> Title from Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness’ “Fire Escape,” which I think suits Batgirl and Robin very well.

It was a slow fall night, and Barbara really wished her father and mentor would shut up.

The chill had only just come to Gotham. School had barely started a few weeks ago, and the white mists and blood hues of the leaves had yet to creep into the city. Even through the relatively thin fabric of her uniform, she wasn’t too uncomfortable standing on top of the precinct building, watching the traffic creep on by below them. In the pure blue of dusk, the lights were brighter; the darks melting into the city’s shadows.

Robin — Dick — in his ridiculous traffic light colors, standing out like a beacon in the night, stood beside her; shifting from foot to foot, fidgeting with the hem of his cape. She balanced her weight on one foot, cocking her hip slightly to the side. In blue and gray, blending in with the dusk, she felt inconspicuous. It wasn’t such a bad feeling.

Boredom, on the other hand...

“When are they gonna be done?” Dick muttered to her, balancing on his tiptoes to reach her ear. He’d shot up three inches in the last six months, but she still had a good half foot on him. “They had to have finished comparing notes on the case half an hour ago. What are they talking about now?”

She looked at the pair of them.

Jim’s silhouette was clear against the blinding light of the Bat-Signal, a thin line of smoke rising from the orange-glow cigarette in his mouth. Bruce lurked just next to the Signal, barely visible in the black folds of his cape. From the other side of the roof, aka the regularly delegated sidekick waiting spot, she and he couldn’t catch a single word of what they were saying.

“I bet they’re not even talking shop anymore,” Dick continued. “I bet they’re gossiping like a couple of old ladies in the hair salon, and they just don’t want us over there ‘cause we’re _babies_.”

For the first time all night, Barbara smiled.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I bet Bruce is telling my dad which of the Justice League have hooked up with each other when they think he’s not paying attention.”

“Or, your dad is telling Bruce the things perps do when they’re bored in the holding cells.”

“Ew. Oh! Which married socialites got pregnant by the gardener or the pool boy.”

“Which married lady cops got pregnant by their guy partners!”

“Dick, I’ve grown up next to the guy cops in this precinct. Who’d want to get pregnant by them?”

“I dunno, I guess there are people with low standards everywhere.”

She chuckled, shifting a little closer to him.

“True. Okay, but what would they talk about if we were standing over there?”

“Tax exemptions or something. Make us think being an adult is all boring shit.”

“Make us go away again so Bruce can brood with minimal distractions.”

Dick pulled his cape up over his head and stuck his fingers up under it, imitating the ears on Bruce’s cowl. Barbara swept hers up over her arm and in front of her face.

“Ooh, I’m Batman. Everything is awful. Brood, brood, stand on a gargoyle in the rain.”

“Monologue, monologue.” Dick’s voice was muffled under his cape. “Robin, your important mission: go wash the Batmobile. We don’t kill, except for killing joy and the mood in general.”

She snickered, so caught up that she didn’t notice the two adults heading over to them. It was several seconds before the two teenagers realized they were being stared at; their heads snapping up, Dick’s cape half-hanging off one ear.

Jim, for his part, looked amused by the pair of them. Bruce did not.

“If you two are _quite finished_...” he growled.

“Oh, grow a sense of humor, B, we were just kidding around,” Barbara scoffed, not at all bothered by the scowl. Dick looked slightly embarrassed. “We’ve been standing on a rooftop for an hour, we had to find something to do.”

“I expected the two of you to wait patiently, as always. The Commissioner and I had important things to discuss.”

Dick lost a little of his embarrassment, looking directly at her and mouthing: _Like all the best spots that the Leaguers hooked up in the Watchtower._

“Robin...”

 _Did he put in cameras_ everywhere? _Imagine being on monitor duty and seeing_ that.

The two teenagers immediately started laughing again. Bruce sighed deeply.

“I see there’s no point in keeping you two on patrol anymore tonight. You can head back to the Cave and drop off my case notes.” He pulled out a small pad of paper, covered in shorthand.

“Will do, B,” Dick agreed between giggles. He took the paper from his mentor’s gloved hand, stowing it in his own utility belt. “Ready to go, Batgirl?”

She leapt past him to the edge of the building, pulling out her grappling gun.

“Born ready, Robin.”

She shot out a line, leaping over the side of the station.

For a long few moments, she was airborne —

— wind wrapped around her whole body, caressing her hair and cape backwards —

— she smiled and laughed in the sheer joy of flying —

It only took a few moments, but it felt like longer before she landed neatly on the roof of the apartment complex across the street. Her pulse was still jumping in her throat as she turned her landing into a crouch, avoiding any strain to her legs or ankles.

Just a second after that, Dick landed beside her, adding a little extra somersault to his arrival. Show-off.

“Race you to midtown,” he crowed, a little bit of gravel embedded against his bare knees. Before she could respond, he had already sped off, yellow cape like a gaudy flag flapping behind him.

“You little brat!”

His laughter echoed into the night as she ran after him, the adrenaline of the job once again singing in her veins.

 

* * *

 

Bruce watched the teenagers go with exasperation and amusement, still as marble. Jim meandered back up to him, lighting a new cigarette.

“Those kids and their antics are not helping me in my attempts to quit,” he remarked, the first cloud of pungent smoke puffing from his mouth.

Bruce didn’t smile or laugh, but his trademark scowl did soften a bit more.

“How long do you think your daughter’s going to keep thinking you don’t know who she is?”

The other man scoffed quietly.

“The real question is: how long do you think both of them are going to keep thinking we don’t know they’re involved with each other?” He followed his friend’s gaze over the city’s jagged mouth, full of massive concrete teeth. The two spots of color had just vanished from view.

“I’m surprised you’re not upset.”

“And you are? Your boy should be grateful my daughter likes him.”

Bruce huffed.

“Look, she doesn’t listen to me to stay in her room at night, for God’s sake. She’s sure as hell not going to listen to me if I try to tell her who she can date.” Jim looked back at him. “Besides, he’s a good kid. Don’t quote me on that if he asks my opinion on their relationship, though.”

This time, the huff sounded amused.

“I’m not upset Robin likes her. Just...one minute ago he was nine and tiny, now he’s a teenager and dating a girl. He’s supposed to be a kid.”

“Bruce, they are kids. And apparently, this is what kids do.” He paused, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke and muttering: “Up to and including driving their old men crazy.”

The marble finally cracked, and the Batman offered a rare smile.

“Well. That I can’t argue with.”

 

* * *

 

The night had shifted from true blue to hinted with black, the skyline speckled with light. Across the upper crust of downtown, the occasional citizen would look up and catch the slim, fleeting silhouettes of the figures upon their roofs.

“Try and keep up, BG!”

Barbara cursed under her breath and sprang off someone’s trapdoor, leaving the lock rattling. The leap propelled her several feet forward along the roof, though Dick remained ahead of her, running backwards and doing the occasional flip, just to be annoying.

“Getting slow in your old age?”

“I’m only a year and a half older than you!”

“Decades!” he laughed.

Barbara bit back a smile.

Instead, on her next jump, she grabbed him by the edge of his cape and yanked him backwards.

He stumbled.

“What the hell — hey, that’s cheating!” She had just passed him.

“All’s fair in love and war,” she retorted smugly, “and I think this counts as both.”

The eyebrows shot up from under the mask. The look of shock morphed into a crooked, slightly disbelieving smirk, and her heart hammered.

“Oh yeah?”

Swallowing past the newly formed lump in her throat, she jumped the small gap between apartment buildings and kept running —

Until a pixie-boot-clad foot manifested in her path, and she tripped.

Dick immediately tried to run past her as she stumbled —

— and grabbed his hand as she fell.

Both of them fell, he on top of her, and they went tumbling and rolling across the concrete, yelling periodically as the gravel dug into exposed skin.

They came to a halt against the edge of the roof, her now lying on top of him. Both panting, her shaking slightly.

For a moment, they were both quiet, eyes locked behind the mask and cowl.

“Barbara...?”

“Yeah?”

“I have rocks in my underwear.”

She snorted in a very unladylike way.

“Well, that’s what you get for tripping me.”

“You tripped me first!”

“Yeah, and you should’ve figured that I’d get you back for...getting me back.”

“Ooh, did you say you were top of your English class?” he taunted.

“Shut up.”

Despite the tense situation, he still smiled, tilting his head against the dirty gravel. She blushed, tucking a stray strand of hair back under her cowl.

Far above them, a rare star winked through the clouds of smog.

“So if we’re stuck like this, who won—?” he finally wondered aloud.

“Me.”

“— Me. Hey.”

“Sorry, Boy Wonder.” She finally let up off him, sitting back on her heels and letting him rise from the concrete. “We may have ended up in the same spot at the same time, but only one of us was on the bottom.”

He leaned back into her. There was still dust in his hair.

“That doesn’t sound like losing to me.”

She wanted to berate him for being smug, but before she could, she found herself kissing him.

She still felt a little awkward about how it made her feel, but he was always warm, like a skinny acrobatic space heater; he loved to touch her hair and hold her shoulders and always reciprocated with a great deal of enthusiasm.

It was a little sloppy, lacking refinement. It only lasted several seconds. But she liked it.

After they pulled away, he kept his hands draped over her shoulders, his gaze on hers. She ignored the rocks in her knees; the wind chill off the roof. Even with his eyes concealed behind the mask, she still felt that odd feeling in her chest as he looked at her, a slight smile on his lips.

“You don’t think B and your dad gossip about this, do you?” Dick finally asked.

“I really hope not.” She shuddered at the thought. “We’ve only been dating for like, three months. That would be weird if they did.”

“It’s been a pretty good three months, though.”

The flutter in Barbara’s chest turned to a squeezing. She told herself it was just the tightness of her uniform.

“Pretty good,” she agreed, finally getting to her feet and offering Dick her hand. “No need to get ahead of ourselves, though.”

He let out a small laugh, the smitten look morphing into his usual crooked smile.

“Right. Let’s forget the future and our guardians...and let me get ahead of you instead!”

He leapt past her to the edge of the roof, vaulting off.

The moment gone, Barbara jumped after him, swinging over the alleyway below.

“When I get my hands on you, Robin —” she yelled through her smile.

“Promises, promises!”

 

* * *

 

Barbara didn’t run and jump anymore. Nor was she as carefree. Her long hair had been swept up and cut into a bob, her contact lenses replaced with glasses. She had the beginnings of lines on her face; sometimes her scars ached and her back hurt on cold mornings.

But it was spring, and she had no reason to not be happy. The sun had risen early, the city having an unusual clear day with minimal smog; several fingers of blue poking around the gray. The trees were studded with candy pink and green. Around noon when she’d taken a break for lunch, she’d looked out her window and spotted a little red bird chirping on her windowsill.

Speaking of which...

“Stephanie, you didn’t forget your smoke grenades again, did you?”

“That was one time!” the girl before her griped, hoisting her utility belt up around her waist. “God, you’re worse than B.”

“Nobody’s worse than B,” Barbara grinned, as Stephanie slid on her mask. Beside them, waiting patiently on the couch, Cassandra chuckled softly.

“See? Even his beloved child agrees.”

“You are...a bit of a nag too, sometimes,” Cass added. Barbara shot her a look of betrayal.

“Are you two going on patrol, or ganging up on me?”

“No reason we can’t do both!” Steph laughed.

The two teenage girls were nearly opposites in appearance. Stephanie was a brilliant fireworks display in her red, yellow, and green; blond hair a wild halo around her face. Cassandra was silent and enigmatic in her black and her sewn-up cowl; something a little other than human. But Barbara saw the lack of tension in her shoulders, and heard her soft chuckles at each of Steph’s antics.

She rolled over to the girl who’d become Batgirl and put her hand on her shoulder.

“You ready for patrol, Cass?”

A single nod.

“Right. Now don’t get distracted, and don’t think I don’t know about your unnecessary rooftop games.”

Both girls drew back in mock affront.

“Barbara!” Stephanie gasped. “How could you possibly think so little of us? We’re consummate professionals!”

“Nice try. Believe it or not, I was a teenager too once.”

“When was that?”

“Stone Ages,” Cass said helpfully.

As they laughed again, Barbara made a show of rolling her eyes.

“Out! Both of you! Begone from my house!”

Just close enough so that their shoulders were brushing, careful not to let their hands touch, Batgirl and Robin took their leave from her living room, capes swirling behind them.

She stared after them for a little while.

Then she rolled back to her workstation and settled back in front of her screens. She let the green glow envelop her; lost in her work.

 

* * *

 

“Good job, Canary. Call me when you get there.”

Barbara hung up, feeling her usual thrum of satisfaction in her heart as she completed another piece of her work; the tempo of her pulse lifting. She sat there for a minute, head resting on her hand, contemplating what to do next.

Her fingers then began to fly over the keyboard. Soon, she had live feed from one of the traffic cameras along Cass’s favorite patrol route across her screen.

The girls seemed to have gotten much closer — figuratively and literally — since they were out of sight. As they tied up a pair of muggers together, their hands frequently brushed, stealing a lot more glances from each other than work partners were supposed to.

“So, how long do you think they’re going to go before they realize we know they’re together?”

Barbara’s head tilted back until she was looking into a very familiar pair of blue eyes. She beamed.

 _Now_ it really felt like home around the Tower.

“You’re back from work early.”

“Got my paperwork done sooner than I thought I would.” Still in the blues and grays of his police uniform, he knelt down and rested his forearms on the back of her wheelchair, his head tilted in next to hers as they peered at the screen.

“To answer your question, I’m gonna give it another month.”

“More like a week. Tim’s this close to blurting it out.”

“Give Tim some credit,” she scolded lightly.

“Two weeks.”

“You’re on.”

Before them, the girls had finished tying up the thugs.

_“Not bad for my first stint in the colors, eh BG?”_

_“Third stint. Nice try.”_

_“...My first stint in the colors with you?”_

Cass’s face was invisible under the cowl, but Barbara could’ve sworn she was blushing.

_“I’ll give you that.”_

_“Noted.”_ Steph was grinning. _“But let the record show that I let you give me that.”_

_“Not true.”_

_“Oh my god,”_ one of the muggers groaned. _“Are you two gonna kiss or what?”_

Dick and Barbara laughed. Cass stiffened; Steph turned nearly as red as her uniform.

_“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about; you’re crazy, man —”_

Cass pulled her cowl up until her mouth was exposed before planting a kiss on the other girl’s lips. Stephanie went completely still; her blush deepening further. The muggers watched with obvious approval.

Barbara smiled.

_“Race you to Riddler’s hideout.”_

With a flash of black, Cass had leapt up into the air. Steph quickly recovered; her line flashing out above her.

_“Oh, she is going down.”_

Barbara clicked the window shut. Beside her, Dick chuckled affectionately.

“Remember another Batgirl and Robin who liked to play around and steal kisses on patrol?”

She sighed softly, leaning back in her chair.

“Seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Fifteen years. Might as well have been.”

“God damn.” She met his eyes. He was so much older, had become so handsome; he’d finally grew into his ears and filled out his long-limbed body and his soft hair actually looked good when it hung in his face. But he still looked at her the same way.

“Well, I’m a little old now to jump around on rooftops like my girls do.” She patted the armrests of her chair with joking ruefulness. “But it’s a quiet night. I imagine we’ll have plenty of time to talk while you’re on patrol.”

“Right.” He turned to the side and kissed her. It only lasted a few seconds, but it filled her heart with its usual steady warmth. She happily embraced the feeling as she kissed him back. “I can do all the jumping around for you.”

“That’s all I need these days.”

 

* * *

 

Nightwing’s joyful laughter echoed down her com as she sorted through her work. The wind whistled down his end, interspersed with the honking of car horns and the distant wail of sirens. Through the window, she could see the last of the sun’s rays disappearing over the horizon, making way for the ink-blue freedom of the night.

Her pulse rushed. All those years later, and even listening from her chair, his jubilance was infectious.

“I’ll see you in a few hours?”

“Yup, though I’m sure you’ll hear from me again before then.”

“Hmmm, I might not need to. Even by the time you’re done the night will still be young.” She flicked the top of her pen, clicking her cameras back up one-handed. Beside her, a fresh cup of coffee steamed gently in the peridot light of the computers. “You can have me all to yourself then, face to face.”

“Yeah, but can you resist the thought of me that long?”

“Most likely.”

“Ouch,” he exclaimed, pretending to be hurt. “But need I remind you that you chose to be stuck with me.”

Barbara thought about the little case in his sock drawer that she’d found last week. The case he didn’t know that she knew about.

“True. I did choose that.” She paused. “Talk to you after patrol, Man Wonder. Or likely, sooner.”

“Told you so.” The smile in his voice was evident even as he hung up.

Shaking her head lightly, Barbara turned back to her live feed. A different camera, a different Batgirl and Robin chasing each other across a moonlit rooftop, the city and their long future stretching ahead of them.

They had no idea what was in store for them.


End file.
